 It's a pleasure to be with you this morning. I'm going to talk about maritime law, much more interesting than the law of armed conflict and things of that nature. And what we're going to do is, first off, I'm going to talk a little bit about, you know, what the general rules are, because that's important, because you need some of that information for your seminars tomorrow and the next day. Then we'll look at excessive claims, how, what countries are doing that violate those basic norms, and then I'm going to specifically look at China because Kevin asked me to look to talk about China, looking at their excessive claims and some of their island disputes in the South China Sea and in the East China Sea, and then we'll wrap it up with that. Now, to begin on the law of the sea issue, let me just say that I'll be using the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as the basis for my discussions. The United States is not a party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Over in 1983, President Reagan issued an ocean policy statement that basically said that we would comply with the traditional provisions of the convention other than the dispute settlement provisions and the deep sea bed mining provisions of the convention because they reflected customary international law and because they reflect customary international law, they're binding on all nations and therefore we would act in accordance with the convention as long as the littoral states would also comply with their rights and obligations under the convention. Secondly, this is the US view of the law of the sea. There are many nations represented in your class. You may not agree with anything that I say or you may agree with some of what I say or you may agree with it all, but this is the US view, so to the extent that I say something that is inconsistent with your views, just keep that in mind that I'm presenting the United States view. And I'll highlight situations where there may be disparities when I talk about excessive maritime claims. Okay, let's begin. The law of the sea convention is adopted in 1982 after nine years of negotiation, so it was very extensive negotiation, one of the most significant accomplishments of the international community in the 20th century. And it establishes a number of maritime zones where the coastal states and user states have respective rights. So the further you get away from the land, the more rights the user states have and the lesser rights and obligations the coastal states have. All of these maritime zones begin with the baseline. So all the various maritime zones are measured from the baseline. The baseline is normally the low watermark, as shown on large-scale charts, but the convention also has some provisions that allow for the drawing of straight baselines and we'll talk about that later on when we talk about excessive claims. All the waters that are landward of that baseline are considered internal waters. The international community does not have a right to enter internal waters with perhaps some limited exceptions for in situations of force majeure where a ship is in danger because of a storm at sea and it's seeking shelter or something like that. So there is a limited right for a ship maybe to come into an internal water without the initial consent of the coastal state. But that's about it. Next, everybody gets a 12 nautical mile territorial sea. In the territorial sea, the coastal state exercises complete sovereignty with one very important limitation and that is that all nations, all the ships of all nations, whether they be warships or commercial ships enjoy a right of innocent passage in the territorial sea. Then we have an additional 12 miles, which is really kind of a law enforcement zone, so a contiguous zone. So the total breadth of the contiguous zone is 24 miles, 12 territorial sea, 12 contiguous zone. In the contiguous zone, the coastal state has the authority to enforce its fiscal, customs, immigration and sanitation laws, where there's going to be a violation of those laws either within its territory or its territorial sea. It can enforce those laws out in this contiguous zone. So think about drug smuggling. You know, the Coast Guard can interdict a vessel in the contiguous zone, for example, if it's suspected of containing narcotics that are bound for the United States based on our law enforcement jurisdiction in the contiguous zone. Then a new zone that was created by the convention that didn't exist prior to 1982 is the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. In the exclusive economic zone, the coastal state enjoys sovereign rights, not sovereign T, there's a difference, sovereign rights over all the living and nonliving resources in the exclusive economic zone. To the exclusion of everybody else. If there's oil in somebody's exclusive economic zone and that country doesn't want to exploit it, nobody else can come in there and exploit it without their consent. Same thing with fish. They have exclusive control over the fish and other resources within the 200 mile zone. And then we have the high seas. Everything seaward of that 200 mile limit is high seas. The continental shelf, which is the subsoil, everybody gets at least a 200 mile continental shelf, again a resource zone. And some states, like the United States and a few other broad margin states can claim an extended continental shelf as long as they meet certain criteria that are established in the convention. Now, as I mentioned, right of innocent passage in the territorial sea, US perspective, from 12 on out, high seas, freedoms of navigation and overflight apply. It means we can engage in surveillance activities in someone's contiguous zone or other types of military activities. They're perfectly legitimate as long as you are outside of 12 miles. Airspace, there is no right of innocent passage for aircraft in national airspace. So above that 12 nautical mile territorial sea and landward, you have no right of overflight without the coastal states consent. Everything seaward is international airspace, again high seas, freedoms of overflight apply in those regions. Again, just a very general rundown of the various zones and some of the coastal state competencies in those zones. Now, as I mentioned, the territorial sea today is 12 miles. In 19, prior to 1982, the territorial sea was 3 miles. What that meant was that most international straits, like Gibraltar or Moose, Bob L. Mondeb, Straits of Malacca, et cetera, all had a high seas corridor because even here, if Spain had a 3-mile territorial sea and Morocco had a 3-mile territorial sea, there was still a 2-mile high seas corridor that went straight through the international strait. What that meant was we could send our aircraft through there without coastal state permission. We could send submarines submerged through there without coastal state permission. Our warships could go through their launch aircraft that they wanted to. However, once that territorial sea got extended to 12 nautical miles, all of a sudden 115 international straits around the world are now overlapped by territorial seas. What does that mean? If you don't have a special navigation regime through those straits, it's the territorial sea, and in the territorial sea, you only have a right of innocent passage. And if you're a submarine, that means you've got to be on the surface and fly on your flag, and if you're a nuclear submarine, you don't want to tell everybody where you're at, do you? Or if you're an aircraft, you have to have permission to fly over somebody's territorial sea. If you're a warship, you have to limit what types of activities you're engaged in an innocent passage. So the trade-off was this right of transit passage. And what the right of transit passage says is that all ships in aircraft have this non-suspendable right of transit passage through international straits in the normal mode of operations. What's the normal mode of operation for a submarine? Submerge. Warships will routinely, in the normal mode of operation, launch aircraft for force protection purposes. Aircraft overfly without asking coastal state permission. So very important transit right for the international community in exchange for this increase in the breadth of the territorial sea from 3 to 12 nautical miles. Now the coastal state can go to the International Maritime Organization and adopt traffic separation schemes and other sea lanes for safety of navigation purposes in an international strait. And by and large, shipping will use those traffic separation schemes for safety navigation purposes. But these regimes are adopted pursuant to the Safety at Life at Sea Convention. There is a specific exemption in the Safety at Life at Sea Convention for warships and other sovereign immune vessels. So if you're a warship or other government-owned or operated vessel that's not being operated for commercial purposes, you do not have to use an IMO-approved traffic separation scheme. You normally will, but you don't have to as a matter of law. Now the interesting thing here is Iran, like the United States, is not a party to the convention. Iran has taken the position that the right of transit passage is a creature of the convention and only state parties to the convention can exercise a right of transit passage. So in their mind, the United States does not have a right of transit passage through the strait zone moves. Now that could be a good argument. I mean, I think, I don't know if Kevin gave you, did you give him James' article to read? Okay. There's an article that was written by a colleague of mine that James Kraska, who he makes the argument that that might be a good argument because prior to the Law of the Sea Convention, there was a right of non-suspendable innocent passage in an international strait and that came out of the old Corfu Channel case from the 1940s off the coast of Albania. And as a result, the U.S. really only has a right of non-suspendable innocent passage in the straits of our moves, which usually isn't as good as transit passage. Now whether that's true or not, again, he makes a good argument that that might be the case. And the reason he makes the argument is so that that can be used as one thing that the United States can argue to the Senate that says, hey, we really need to join the convention because, by becoming a party to the convention, we now take away Iran's argument that we don't have a right of transit passage in the straits of our moves. Again, one potential argument that could be made. Again, this is a non-suspendable right in peacetime and in normal mode of operation. The other important regime that was created by the convention is this idea of archipelagos. And what an archipelago is is an island nation. So you think Philippines, Indonesia, Maldives. There's about 20 nations that meet the criteria of being an island nation. And you have, there's a formula in the convention that the ratio of land to water has to be a certain, it's 9 to 1 or 1 to 1 in order to qualify as an archipelago. So not all island nations qualify as archipelagic states. Only those that meet the requirements of the convention of 9 to 1 or 1 to 1 land to water ratio can claim archipelagic status. But what archipelagic status gives you is you can now draw straight baselines around all of your islands and all the waters inside are archipelagic waters. Archipelagic waters are just like the territorial sea for navigation purposes. The international community only has a right of innocent passage in archipelagic waters. The exception being just like transit passage is the right of archipelagic sea lane passage in all normal routes used for international navigation in the archipelago. Exact same rights that you get in transit passage apply in archipelagic sea lanes passage. The coastal, the archipelagic nation is the one that has to go to the international maritime organization and ask that these archipelagic sea lanes be designated and approved within their archipelagic waters. The only state that has done that to date is Indonesia and their designation is only what's been recognized by the international maritime organization as a partial designation because they designate all of the normal routes used for international navigation. The only lanes that were submitted by Indonesia to the IMO for approval were three north-south lanes that you can see here with some associated spurs. The United States at the international maritime organization argued that there were some additional sea lanes that we traditionally use, the U.S. Navy. You can see those are in yellow particularly this east-west sea lane was of particular interest to the United States because even if there are areas in here that can't be navigated because it's too shallow, archipelagic sea lanes passage still allows for a right of overflight just like transit passage allows for a right of overflight through an international strait. So U.S. had some additional sea lanes that we indicated that we would continue to use even though the IMO only had approved three north-south and the Australians also had a couple of extra ones that you can see here in black. So again, Indonesia, the only nation that has declared archipelagic sea lanes, that means that in all other archipelagic nations like the Philippines, the right of archipelagic sea lanes passage applies in all normal routes that have traditionally been used for international navigation through the archipelago even though they haven't designated any sea lanes. Okay, that's quick overview of maritime law. I know it's fast and furious, but if you have any questions, they'll take them afterwards or you can shoot me an email later on and be glad to answer any questions you have. Now I'm going to look at excessive maritime claims. How have certain states reacted to unclossed, even though they're parties to unclossed, are their maritime claims consistent with international law? And we're going to look at a number of different types of excessive claims. If you go to this website down here, it's the most, they're both good websites, but this one actually has the most updated version of the Maritime Claims Reference Manual. What the Maritime Claims Reference Manual is, it's a DOD publication and it contains the maritime claims of every nation in the world and it'll indicate whether or not the United States recognizes those claims as valid and if we don't, it'll indicate why we don't and it'll indicate whether or not we have challenged those claims pursuant to our Freedom of Navigation Program either through a diplomatic protest or through an operational challenge with warships or aircraft. We have a very robust Freedom of Navigation Program in the United States. It's been ongoing since 1979 where we challenge excessive maritime claims. Back when I was in the Pentagon many years ago, I was the head of the program. We were probably doing 35 to 40 challenges a year today because of reduced assets. We're only doing about 10 or 12 a year. And then the State Department maintains a robust program of protesting excessive claims as well. Now, again, Kevin asked me to talk about China. China is a good country to look at when we're talking about excessive claims because they are the poster child of excessive maritime claims. And you can put Iran right beside them. They're the redheaded stepchild of excessive maritime claims. So we're going to look at China in particular because virtually all of their claims are excessive if you look at the provisions of the convention and read them carefully. To begin, straight baselines. As I mentioned, the general rule is that the low water mark is the normal baseline for measuring the various maritime zones. Article 7 of the convention does contain a exception that allows for coastal state to draw straight baselines if the coastline is deeply indented or if there's a fringe of island along the coast. In those situations, then the coastal state can draw straight baselines connecting, you know, the mouths of the deep indentations. Think Norway, all the fjords going in. It doesn't make any sense for them to have to measure their territorial sea around all those fjords. The law allows them to draw straight baselines closing off the mouth of those fjords and then they measure their territorial sea and other maritime zones from those lines. Same thing with fringing islands along the coast that are in close proximity to the coast. Doesn't make any sense to have the coastal state draw 12-mile arcs around each of those fringing islands and then drawing their territorial sea. So the convention does allow for the use of straight baselines. Now the problem with straight baselines is that probably there's about 80 or so countries out of the 165 state parties to the convention that claim straight baselines. Probably 95% of those straight baselines are illegal under international law, even though they are parties to the convention. The problem is that when you have straight baselines, remember all the water that's landward of the baseline? That's internal waters, no right of passage at all. So the coastal state effectively can shut off navigation rights in those areas by drawing excessive straight baselines off their coast. In addition, it creates a problem because all the maritime zones are measured from those baselines. That means their maritime zones are going to go further out to sea and if you're in an area like Asia Pacific, everybody has 200-mile EEZs and they all overlap. So it creates a potential for conflict on where those areas overlap. Here you see China's straight baselines. You can see that the coastline itself is very smooth, no deep indentations. Here maybe, but it draws straight baselines. A couple of fringing islands here that might qualify, a couple down here that might qualify, but by and large, most of the straight baselines that China draws are excessive if you look at the provision of the convention. In addition, they draw a straight baseline that closes off the mouth to the Strait of An'Ain that is an international straight. But by drawing that straight baseline, China is saying that those are internal waters and the international community does not have a right of transit passage through that international straight, even though it meets the definition of an international straight under the convention, which is connecting one part of the high seas or EEZ with another part of the high seas or EEZ. It's a geographical description. It's not a use definition. Next, territorial sea. China, even though the convention provides that all ships enjoy the right of innocent passage in the territorial sea, as long as they don't engage in these certain prohibited activities, Article 19 of the convention has a list of about 13 or so activities, half of which are military like intelligence collection, launching aircraft or other kinds of military devices, use of weapon systems, interfering with coastal states' communications, stuff like that. Those things are prohibited activities in innocent passage. So if you're a warship, you can't conduct intelligence against the coastal state and be considered to be an innocent passage. You can still do it. It's not illegal to do it. It just means that you're not an innocent passage and you suffer the consequences if the coastal state catches you. Again, submarines have to navigate on the surface, show their flag, and we already talked about the contiguous zone, where the only competencies that the coastal state have are law enforcement authorities over customs, fiscal immigration, and sanitation. Now if you're China, China's position is, and there's about, I'd say 35, 38 other countries that agree with China. Again, there's 165 state parties, so about a fifth of the parties to the convention agree with China that warships do not have a right of innocent passage unless they ask for permission from the coastal state. Secondly, if you're a nuclear-powered vessel or you're carrying any type of hazardous cargo or nuclear cargo, again, China would require you to have permission before you can engage in innocent passage in their territorial sea. In the contiguous zone, China claims a right to enforce not only customs, fiscal immigration, and sanitation laws, but also has the right to enforce security jurisdiction in the EEZ. What does that translate into? No intelligence collection by U.S. ships in their contiguous zone. China's, their most egregious claim is probably in the exclusive economic zone. As I mentioned earlier, this is a creature of the convention. It didn't exist before 1982. As you can see, a lot of water space, particularly in Asia Pacific and Oceania, 38% of the world's oceans are now comprised of EEZs that used to be high seas. High seas being what? You can do whatever you want in the high seas, subject to, you know, do regard for the rights of other states that exercise their rights in the high seas. But now all of a sudden these areas are now exclusive economic zones. So what does that mean from a navigational perspective? The U.S. view, and again, the majority view for navigational rights in the exclusive economic zone is high seas, freedom of navigation and overflight apply, and other lawful uses of the oceans associated with those freedoms. So you read into that military activity, surveillance activities, anything that you can do in the high seas, you can do in the EEZ as long as you're not interfering with the coastal states resource rights. So there's a right to fish on the high seas without anybody's permission other than if you're partied to a treaty or something. So you couldn't fish in somebody's EEZ without asking permission, even though it's a high seas freedom. So high seas freedom that do not impact resource rights can be exercised in the EEZ without coastal state notice or consent. Again, China takes an opposite view, and China is joined by 17 other nations who take the position that they can regulate military activities in their EEZ, and it's a regional thing. There's eight of them in Asia Pacific, eight in the Indian Ocean. So a lot of countries that border each other all have the same type of excessive claims, and then what I call the Portuguese connection. I hope there's no Portuguese officers here, but Portugal, Brazil, and Cape Verde also purport to restrict military activities in the EEZ. And then there are seven states that claim territorial seas in excess of 12 miles. Some, most of those claim 200 mile, exclusive 200 mile territorial seas. And again, if it's a territorial sea claim and it's valid, there would be no right of military activities in the territorial sea. And then three states like China claim a security interest in the contiguous zone where they purport to restrict military activities. Now, these restrictions can take a number of different forms, as you can see here. They might prohibit marine data collection with our SIRTAS ships, our special mission ships that are out collecting intel or doing hydrographic surveys. It could just be a prior notice in consent regime like China has for warships in the territorial sea for innocent passage. Or it might be environmental, environmentally based where they say that your use of sonar is harming the marine mammals in my exclusive economic zone. And because I have resource rights over the marine mammals in my exclusive economic zone, you're violating my resource rights. Or they could just say, like China does, that they have a national security interest in prohibiting activities in the exclusive economic zone that could impact their national security interest on land. Now, having said that there are these 28 states that purport to regulate military activities, the only three that have really done anything about it is China, North Korea and Peru. Some of the other states have filed from time to time a diplomatic protest. Brazil, for example, Pakistan, for example, India, for example, may file a diplomatic protest with the United States if they see one of our survey ships off their coast collecting data. But by and large, the only countries that have taken any type of use of force action against those activities are these three nations that you see here. First, Pueblo back in 1968, well beyond the territorial sea. Back then the territorial sea was three nautical miles, not 12, so again, on the high seas. The ship was actually sent overtly to this region to see how the Soviets and the North Koreans would react to the presence of the Pueblo collecting intelligence off their coast. And I think they got the response that they didn't expect when the vessel was attacked by the North Koreans and the crew was held captive for almost a year. Next incident, about 30 years later, 25 years later, we have a U.S. C-130 aircraft that's engaged in narcotics, counter-narcotics operations off the coast of Peru, about 60 nautical miles off the coast of Peru when it was ordered to land by Peruvian Air Force. The aircraft refused, indicated that it was, you know, engaged in internationally recognized overflight rights over the EEZ, and the Peruvian aircraft fired on the U.S. C-130 and one crew member was killed, two others wounded, and the aircraft had to make an emergency landing. So those two countries, and then we've got China. China has been the most frequent and aggressive proponent of its rights to prohibit military activities in its EEZ. This is a representative sample, it's by no means, I don't walk away from here with the impression these are the only incidents with China since 2001, there's been plenty of them, but these are the ones that have made the newspaper. So I highlight those, you can see it kind of occurs in batches, this occurred at the beginning of the new Bush administration, when before the really, I was part of the transition government at that point because I had been a special assistant to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in the Clinton administration. So I was part of the transition as the new Bush administration came in, and we had nobody in place. None of the political appointees had been approved by the Senate yet, the only person that was in place was the Secretary of Defense, that's it, none of the Undersecretaries, principal deputies, there were a few assistant secretaries that weren't political appointees that had transitioned over because of GS or career or civil service employees, but we had virtually nobody in the Pentagon in leadership positions at the time. So to me, this was the gauge how the Bush administration would respond to Chinese aggression with regards to military activities in the EEZ. Again, same thing here, new Obama administration in place. A lot of the political appointees not yet in place, they interfered with these ships. Here in the Boudic incident, get a hydrographic survey vessel, conducting hydrographic survey in the Yellow Sea, it was ordered to depart the area by PLA Navy warship. EP3 incident in April of 2001, two F-8 Chinese PLAF aircraft intercepted an EP3 that was conducting surveillance missions about 70-some miles off the coast of Hunan Island. One of the Chinese aircraft accidentally ran into the P-3, the Chinese aircraft was cut in half, pilot died, and the EP3 had to make an emergency land in Hunan Island. I was part of the team that went to China to negotiate the release of the crew. They were held in captivity on Hunan Island for about two weeks by the Chinese until we negotiated their release and we've got the aircraft back in July of that same year, July 4th to be exact. Okay, same thing, impeccable, victorious. Again, two special mission ships conducting surveillance activities off the coast of China, this one in the Yellow Sea. I mean, this one in the South China Sea, the victorious was in the Yellow Sea. Again, this time interference not by PLAN, but by White Hulls and by civilian proxies. In 2010, George Washington was going to announce that George Washington was going to engage in a number of military exercises with the South Korean Navy in the Yellow Sea following the sinking of the Cheonan by the North Korean submarine, and the Chinese vehemently objected to the presence of an aircraft, a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea in close proximity to their coast. Eventually, there was about a series of about four or five exercises during this period. The U.S. did not send the George Washington into the Yellow Sea. In my opinion, a bad decision. They kept it to the east of the peninsula, but finally in November, after repeated attempts to convince the Chinese that this was an aggression on our part, we finally just went ahead and sent the George Washington into the Yellow Sea to conduct the exercise with the Rock Navy. U-2 intercept in 2011, I only put that on here. The notable thing about this one was that it was actually in the over-flying the Taiwan Strait, which isn't an international strait because it has a high-seas corridor. It's about 70 miles wide. So there's a high-seas corridor through the straits of Taiwan, there's a U.S. U-2 that was flying there, the Chinese scrambled a couple of jets, and what happened was they actually crossed this mythical median line and then the Taiwan Air Force reacted to the Chinese incursion of the median line. But the Chinese are very sensitive to our surveillance flights off their coasts, and it's one thing that they have repeatedly indicated, both at the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings as well as in other policy talks with the United States, is that they want us to knock off these surveillance flights because they find them to be inimical to their national security interests. Now, it's not just about the U.S., we also saw in 2011, 2012, when India started showing a greater presence in the South China Sea. There were a couple of incidents where Indian warships were challenged by PLN warships when they entered the South China Sea. And then the last incident was just in July of this year with the impeccable being challenged by a Chinese law enforcement vessel. Now, the interesting thing about China is that their legal position has changed over time. As they'll make it, they'll state a position, they'll realize that that position is not gaining a lot of traction in the international community. So they then change their position. They never abandoned their old position. So if you look back at 2001 and 2000, the EP3 incident, it was all about national security. The fact that we were conducting intelligence collection off their coast violated the peaceful provisions of the convention, which say that the oceans should just be used for peaceful purposes. And they felt that conducting surveillance was not peaceful and therefore that violated the provisions of the convention. And the proximity to the mainland, their argument was if you have sensors that can conduct surveillance at 250 miles off our coast, why are you conducting it 70 miles off our coast? So it's a proximity type, but to me it undercuts their argument because they're not saying that the activity is illegitimate. They're trying to argue that the proximity is what's illegitimate, which doesn't make any sense. But anyways, you can see early on it was national security and the platforms that were being used, warships and military aircraft. That didn't gain a whole lot of support internationally, particularly after the EP3 incident. They caught a lot of heat over the EP3 incident. So what do they do? In 2002, they passed a survey and mapping law. This survey and mapping law basically says that any marine data collection in the Chinese exclusive economic zone falls under the jurisdiction of the coastal state, basing their argument on the fact that the convention says that the coastal state has exclusive jurisdiction over marine scientific research in the exclusive economic zone. So they were equating hydrographic surveys or surveillance collection with marine scientific research and using that as the legal basis, in addition to these other national security interests, to indicate that hydrographic surveys that were being conducted by the Bowditch in 2002 and 2008 violated the marine scientific research provisions of the convention and violated their domestic law. In addition, we saw rather than having PLA do the interference, their White Halls started doing the interference. They have about five different agencies that form their maritime law enforcement. They've now all been combined in one maritime bureau, but back here they all had independent authorities. So we saw White Halls, as opposed to warships, doing the interfering with the military activities. Again, that didn't carry a whole lot of weight in the international community. So in 2005, this is about the time when the U.S. Navy is being sued in Federal District Court in San Diego for using low-frequency acoustic radar during military exercises as battle groups are getting or strike groups are going through workups to get certified. The U.S. Navy got sued. An injunction was issued by the Federal District Court in California upheld by the Ninth Circuit. In California, it went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court overruled the lower course and said that the Navy did have a right to engage in the use of low-frequency acoustic radar in military exercises. Now, the interesting thing was though that at the Maritime Maritime Consultative Agreement meeting in 2005, that was one of the arguments that the Chinese used for why we should not be conducting military activities in their exclusive economic zone. Because it was harming the marine mammals and disrupting fish patterns in the exclusive economic zone. Basically, the same argument that we're being made by the NGOs suing the U.S. Navy in Federal District Court, their point being if you can't do it in your exclusive economic zone, why are you allowed to do it in my exclusive economic zone? Of course, they ignored the fact that the Supreme Court eventually overruled the lower course, but that didn't matter to them. They now had an argument that they could latch on to. And again, we also saw for the first time starting in 2009 where they started using civilian proxies to do the interfering. The impeccable incident in 2009 was actually a couple of cargo ships that were under the direction of PLA Navy. There was an intelligentship in the vicinity as well as two white hauls in the vicinity, but the ships that actually did the interference were two small cargo ships. Same thing with the Victorians in 2009, this time it was fishing vessels that did the interference. My mind, they're trying to create a situation where a U.S. Navy ship sinks a Chinese fishing vessel. They then say our vessel was fishing. You have directly interfered with our resource rights. You've got to knock off this type of activity. And then finally, fast forward to 2013 for the first time, China acknowledged publicly that they too are now engaging in surveillance activities in the U.S. EEZ off the coast of Guam and off the coast of Hawaii. So that the question then becomes have they changed their position? Is it now, do they think this is something that they can do legitimately and that we can do legitimately in their EEZ? I would say probably not because this was in June, in July, they challenged the victorious that was conducting a survey in the LOC just a month after they made this statement that they were engaged in military activities in the U.S. exclusive economic zone. So I don't see them engage in a change of their position. I think they'll continue to interfere with our military activities in their exclusive economic zone. Now China also makes a pretty expansive claim in the South China Sea. This is the one that's been in the news the most. This and the dispute that they have with Japan in the East China Sea was also, we'll walk through those two scenarios here real quickly. You can see they've claimed what I call the U-shaped line, the cow's tongue, the nine dashed line, whatever you want to call it, it's called by different names. But back in 1948, when Chiang Kai-shek was still in control, when this map first appeared and then it was adopted by the People's Republic of China when they took power in 1945, the 49. So you can see this, you got this U-shaped line in the South China Sea and nobody really knows what it means. But when they protested the Philippines and the Vietnamese and the Malaysian claims to extended continental shelves, I think they articulated pretty clearly what their position is and what they're saying is that all of the land features that are within this U-shaped line, so all of the parasails, the McCluss field bank, Scarborough Shoal, the Spratly Islands, all of those land features and their adjacent water, so reed territorial seas if the feature generates a territorial sea are sovereign Chinese territory. In addition, they're claiming that all the waters that are encompassed by this U-shaped line, they have EEZ-like resource rights over the exclusion of everybody else to the resources in those waters. That's basically the position that China has taken with regards to the U-shaped claim in the South China Sea. You can see it's been reaffirmed on numerous occasions since 1948, most recently in 2013 when they issued some new official state maps that specifically indicate that the parasails and the Spratly archipelagoes fall within Chinese sovereign territory. Problem is, there's other claimants to these areas. You can see Vietnam claims most of the South China Sea as well. The Philippines claims a small portion here, what's called the KIG, Kalyan Island Group. Brunei claims a fishing zone off of its coast, 200 miles. And then Malaysia also claims some of the features in the South China Sea. So you've got all these overlapping claims that are encompassed by the U-shaped claim, very rich fishing grounds, potential for oil and gas. There really hasn't been a whole lot of oil and gas development in the Spratlys themselves. And it's questionable whether there really is a lot of oil and gas there or not. There's been some reporting that there is. But by and large it's speculative at this point and some recent reports have indicated this may not be as plentiful as once originally thought. But if you're China and you're looking for oil and gas, you're going to get it anywhere you can. And so they're claiming these areas to be under their resource rights. And you can see a lot of oil and gas development down here, a lot going on over here, but really nothing going on here. And China has some offshore oil and gas developments in the Philippines as well off of Palawan. All right, how do you acquire sovereignty over territory? You just can't draw a line in the ocean and say everything that's encompassed within this U-shaped line belongs to China. Their position basically, they were the first to discover it. They were the first to name it. And as a result, the law 3,000 years ago when they initially discovered the South China Sea Island was discovery alone was sufficient legal basis to justify a claim of sovereignty over land territory. Well, that's not the law anymore. They want it to be the law, but that's not the law anymore. The law now requires that in order to acquire territorial sovereignty, you have to have effective occupation of the territory and that requires two different things. One is a public and permanent intent to occupy, which they might have, they might have an intent to occupy. And then you also have to have peaceful and continuous occupation of those islands or those features before what's called the critical date, the critical date being the day that a dispute arises as a result of a piece of land. So the only country that has peacefully and continuously occupied the South China Sea Islands was France. Back in, because Indochina used to be part of France. And in particular, South Vietnam, which was coach in China, was a colony of France. The part which would be North Vietnam was really a protector of the France, not a colony of France. So when France occupied the South China Sea Islands, the Paracels and the Spratlys, they were eventually evicted from Vietnam in the 1950s as a result of the Indochina War, French Indochina War. So who gets France's claims to the South China Sea Island? South Vietnam, because South Vietnam was a colony of France. They inherit as a successor state the claims that France had to the South China Sea Islands. Then when Vietnam reunites in the 70s, now North Vietnam, who becomes all of Vietnam, they inherit what South Vietnam had. So in my mind, Vietnam has the strongest claims to all of the features in the South China Sea. That doesn't mean that they get all the resources, but in my mind they have the strongest claim to territorial sovereignty over the land features in the South China Sea, because France was the only country, apart from Japan, who invaded the Paracels and Spratlys during World War II, but they relinquished their claim to those islands in the peace treaty in 1951 after the war ended. So France, South Vietnam inherits. Vietnam inherits what the South had. So in my mind, Vietnam has the better claim. China doesn't agree, obviously, so what are they trying to do to depict to the international community that they have effective occupation and administrative control of the South China Sea Islands? Now everything I'm going to tell you isn't that I don't agree that what they're doing is illegal. I'm just telling you what they are projecting to the international community as their effective occupation and administrative control of the South China Sea Islands. First, they live by the maximum possession is 9 tenths of the law, so when military force is required, they do not hesitate to use military force when the time is right. In 1974, U.S. withdrawing from Vietnam, South Vietnamese garrison on the Crescent Group of the Paracel Islands, China saw the opportunity and invaded the Paracels and ousted the South Vietnamese garrison that was occupying the Paracels. Fast forward, 1988, now the Soviet Union is imploding, whose Vietnam's best ally, the Soviet Union, again, China sees an opportunity, they engage Vietnamese forces in Johnson South Reef and occupy six additional small features in the South China Sea. Again, we fast forward, 1995, U.S. has been kicked out of the Philippines, you know, we're kind of upset with the Filipinos for doing that, the Chinese move into mischief reef. Initially, they say that this is a shelter to protect fishermen, Chinese fishermen that are in the region, but over the years, you can see it's continued to be developed and, you know, they got a heel pad over here and they've got other, other sensors that are currently on the reef. This is all man-made feature. I mean, the reef itself doesn't, couldn't claim any type of maritime zone, so there are an effect trying to build themselves an island so they can claim the maritime zones, but the convention specifically says an island is a naturally formed feature of land above water at high tide. So, if you're a man-made feature, you don't qualify as an island and you don't get any maritime zones, but again, the Chinese are not abiding by that rule. Some of the other things they're doing, and we'll talk about some of these in more detail, but they've, they impose an annual fishing ban in the vicinity south of the Paracels every year, an annual fishing ban being that everybody else is banned from fishing there, but the Chinese aren't. You got protests to extended continental shelf claims that were made by the Vietnam and Malaysia in the South China Sea. They also protested the Philippines' new archipelagic baselines that they enacted because they also claimed sovereignty over the KIG islands that I mentioned earlier. They've increased their law enforcement as well as their naval presence in the region and then enacted some legislation to resource-related legislation. Again, it'll demonstrate to the international community that they are administratively controlling the South China Sea and its resources because they are the sovereign. Most notably, just last year, they established this new prefecture-level city on Woody Island. You can see it right here, fairly long runway in the Paracels and it's been established now to administer all of the South China Sea islands or China's interest in the South China Sea. The Paracels are Spratly and McClustfield Bank. McClustfield Bank, again, is a totally submerged even at low tide. Yet, they're claiming territorial sovereignty over something that's below water, even at low tide, something that is not legitimate under the law of the Sea Convention. Military garrison was stood up on the island as well and notably, they empowered the maritime police to actually board, seize and expel foreign ships that enter the territorial sea around any of the islands in the South China Sea, which is a pretty significant event. Here you can see who occupies what. Most of the features that are, that can be occupied or occupied by Vietnam, again, because the French were there. There were some established outposts that the French had set up in the South China Sea. So Vietnam, obviously the most, the Philippines, Nex and then China and Malaysia each have seven. Then you have Etuab Island, which is, where is this area? Right there, that's occupied by Taiwan. That's the largest of the Spratly islands. The only island with a fresh water source, it was used by the Japanese during World War II as a submarine base and used as a launch off point for operations against the Philippines. But again, an island that the French had originally established as one of their outposts, had some meteorological outposts in a lighthouse and things like that out there for safety of navigation and weather forecasting. I talked about rocks, islands, low tide elevations, you know, who cares? Well, if you're an island, you get all the maritime zones. So even if you're a little island, this is an island. You get a 200-mile exclusive economic zone, a 200-mile continental shell, a contiguous zone, a territorial sea. Now if you're a rock, and the difference between a rock and an island is that an island can support human habitation on its own, a rock can't. A rock is just a naturally formed feature of land that's above water at high tide. That's a rock. Rocks only get a territorial sea. They don't get the other maritime zones. So the fact that you occupy all these islands in the South China Sea really means nothing because there's probably only about a half dozen that might qualify as an island, a few others that might qualify as a rock, and all the rest of them are low tide elevations. And a low tide elevation gets nothing. They get no maritime zones at all. So that's the importance of what's a rock, what's an island, when you hear that debate going on. The Chinese want this to be an island. Some of the other things they're doing, again, they're trying to demonstrate that they have administrative control of the region. So if somebody like the Philippines or Vietnam is exploiting resources or exploring for resources in the region, then China says it has a right to interfere or to use, it has a right as the sovereign to prevent someone else from interfering with its resource rights in this region because they claim the right to the resources. So in 2011, we had a Philippine seismic survey vessel conducting seismic surveys off of Reed Bank when it was ordered to leave the area by PLA Navy ship. Again, a couple of months later, incident off the coast of Vietnam where the Chinese vessels actually cut the total ray cable of the Vietnamese survey ship. Another incident the following month and then another incident in November. Again, all of these incidents occurring well within the 200 mile exclusive economic zone of Vietnam and the Philippines. So you can see here, this is probably about 130 miles off the coast of Palawan, here 116 nautical miles off the coast of Vietnam. So again, well within the 200 mile zone of those coastal states. So under the law, you would think that the coastal state would have the right to the resources, not China. Another thing China has done is the China National Offshore Oil Corporation announced that they were going to auction off these oil blocks for exploitation, but the problem is they're in Vietnam's exclusive economic zone. They're not in China's exclusive economic zone. So that caused a little bit of an uproar with the Indians because the Indians oil company was going to engage in a joint venture with the Vietnamese to exploit those regions as well. Another example, Scarborough Shoal, a very rich fishing ground for the Filipinos. In the lagoon here, there was 15 Chinese fishing vessels that were illegally fishing there. The Filipinos sent a warship out to arrest them. Why? Because the Philippines buying this is again within their exclusive economic zone, 500 some miles from Hunan Island off the nearest Chinese territory. Yet China is saying that that's theirs. What happened was these China Maritime Surveillance Vessels prohibited the warship from arresting the Chinese fishermen. Things escalated, both sides sent more ships in. Finally, a tropical storm came and the water's got to be too rough, so everybody left. But before they left, the Chinese roped off the mouth of the lagoon and since then have maintained a permanent presence in the region. And I just read in the newspaper last week that the Filipinos have spotted concrete blocks in the lagoon now. So the fear is that they're now starting to construct something like they did on mischief reef in Scarborough Shoal, which again to me is a bad thing. I think the U.S. should have done more in this situation because once the Chinese get a foothold here, I think the Filipinos aren't going to think that we're going to come to their assistance if the need occurs. There's another situation brewing at Second Thomas Shoal with the Filipinos where they ran a ship of ground after World War II and they maintain a permanent presence of about 20 or so Filipino Marines. It's close actually to, it's right down here, it's through the approaches to Reed Bank. It's a very strategic place for the Filipinos to make sure that they can maintain a control of Reed Bank. Again, the situation is brewing there. We don't know what's going to happen, but we'll see how we react if the Chinese become more aggressive at Second Thomas Shoal. How are regional states reacting to all of this? You can see here just I just threw a few up there. Singapore, which is normally fairly neutral when it comes to China, actually told them, hey you need to clarify your claims because this continuous ambiguity that you have is creating tensions and we need to really know what it is you're claiming in the South China Sea so that we can address this with an ASEAN and come up with an acceptable solution. Indonesia, which doesn't have a dog in the fight, they are not a South China Sea claimant, but they actually sent a note of all to the United Nations and said that the U-shaped line lacks international legal basis and tantamount to upset the Law of the Sea Convention. Again, they're a country that has no dog in the fight yet they take a position saying that the U-shaped claim is illegal. Should the U.S. do the same thing? I think we should. We can challenge the validity of the U-shaped claim without taking sides on the sovereignty dispute. We can say just the way that Indonesia said, we can say that this U-shaped line doesn't have any basis at all in international law. Now you might have possession of some of the rocks in the islands within the U-shaped line but you certainly do not have sovereign resource rights within the U-shaped line because under the Law of the Sea Convention the land dominates the sea so your maritime claims have to flow from the land. You just can't create a zone in the ocean and then say that this is my exclusive resource area. It'd be like the U.S. drawing straight baselines from the Aleutians over to Hawaii and from Hawaii over to San Diego and saying that the entire Pacific Ocean belongs to the United States and nobody else can fish there. Maybe we should do that. And then New Zealand. Again, somebody who's usually fairly neutral and you say, hey, you know, the claimants to the region, they got to abide by the Law of the Sea Convention. As I mentioned, India got a little upset with China's announcement that they were going to auction off these blocks of oil development. You can see that the Indian Company is in joint development with Petro-Vietnam to exploit those areas and you even have the Indian C&O saying that they would deploy ships to the region to protect the Indian interest if that was necessary. What have we been doing? We have had some increased attention in the region. 2010 actually was the watershed event. China indicated that the South China Sea was now a core interest. Now, whether they actually said that or not is subject to some debate now. It was said, but they're saying that it wasn't said in the same context as they normally mean core interest. But a core interest, if you translate that into English, it means it's like Taiwan. They will not give up on their claims. There's no room for negotiation on Taiwan. So if the South China Sea is a core interest, now the South China Sea, there is no room for negotiation. That prompt that a statement from Secretary of State Clinton as the ASEAN Regional Forum in 2010 that we had a national interest in maintaining freedom of navigation and access to the South China Sea because a lot of oil and gas passed through there. A lot of shipping passes, 50% of the world's shipping passes through the South China Sea, a lot of it on its way to the U.S. or to Japan, Korea or allies in North Asia. So then in 2011, we started this in Hawaii. It was announced we were going to create this Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, specifically excluding China at the time from becoming a member of TPP. President Obama attended the East Asia Summit. First time President had attended East Asia Summit. You saw we've seen a very increased activity with both Vietnam and the Republic of the Philippines with regards to access, with regards to military exercises, a dramatic increase in the number of ship visits, aircraft visits to the Philippines. We are currently in negotiations with the Philippines to increase our number of troops in the Philippines on a rotational type basis under the Philippine Constitution that prohibits military bases on their territory unless it's been approved by the Senate. So we cannot permanently station anybody under the Philippines. However, we do have a thing called the Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines that allows us to have a presence of, a rotational presence of personnel there to the extent that the Philippine government has authorized that. So we're looking at increasing perhaps the number of personnel, the number of ships, prepositioning equipment and things of that nature in the Philippines, in the pretext being for humanitarian assistance, domestic assistance type response. But you can see, again, a significant increase with these two folks in June of 2012. Secretary, then Secretary of Defense, Panetta announced the Asia Rebalance or the Asia Pivot or whatever you want to call it, where the number of ships that we have will increase to, I think it's 60, 40 or 55, 45, with most of the majority of the ships being in the Asia Pacific. We entered into a new Defense Cooperation Agreement with Australia, where we currently now are deploying on a rotational basis, 2,500 Marines in northern Australia in the Darwin area also gives us greater access to Australian Air Force bases as well as some of their naval bases for resupply. And then finally, again, a significant event, a new Defense Cooperation Agreement with New Zealand. You may or may not know, we've had strained relations with New Zealand over the years because of their nuclear policies. They've wanted us to say whether or not we're carrying nuclear weapons on board our ships. We have neither confirmed nor denied type of a policy. But again, we've entered into a new Agreement, Defense Cooperation Agreement with New Zealand. And one of the things that was announced subsequent to the entering into the agreement was that we are now going to allow on a case by case basis New Zealand warships to call on either Coast Guard or US Navy bases for port visits. In the past, that had not been permitted. When New Zealand participates in RIMPAC in Hawaii, I remember two years ago I think it was, they had to dock downward the cruise ships dock because they weren't allowed to dock at Pearl Harbor. So this eliminates that embarrassment now for the US. Probably the most significant development in maritime law since the adoption of the Law of the Sea Convention is this orbital proceeding that's been initiated by the Philippines. The Convention has provisions in it for compulsory dispute settlement for certain things. Other things are, you can't enforce through compulsory dispute settlement like military related activities, law enforcement related activities, maritime boundary disputes. Those kind of things the nation can say, when they join the Convention, they can say we're not going to submit to compulsory dispute settlement for these kinds of things. But there's other things that they can't. So what the Philippines has done is they have initiated in our compulsory dispute settlement and compulsory orbital proceedings against China in January of this year. And this is what they're looking for the Arbitral Tribunal to rule on. First, that everybody gets the maritime zones that uncloss provides for. Pretty reasonable request. That the Nine Dash Line is illegal. There is no basis for claiming to basically draw a Nine Dash Line in the South China Sea. There's no basis for that in the Convention. They want them to determine the status of the features in the South China Sea. Again, that goes back to the issue of if it's a rock, you get a territorial sea. If it's an island, you get a full maritime zone. If you're low tide elevation, you get nothing. Oh, and by the way, if you're low tide elevation like Scarborough Shoal, which is within the EEZ of the Philippines, China, you can't claim that because it's on the continental shelf of the Philippines. You can't claim that as your sovereign territory because it's not yours. And then finally, to enable the Philippines to exercise their rights, their resource rights within their exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf. China has refused to participate in the proceedings to date. I don't know if they'll change their mind or not. I kind of doubt they will. They have nothing to win by joining the proceedings. It's probably going to take two, three years for the decision to be rendered by the tribunal or by the tribunal. So they have time. They don't have to rush to judgment. But it would be interesting how this all plays out. Again, if the tribunal, China has made the argument that they don't have jurisdiction because this is basically a maritime boundary issue and they're not subject to compulsory dispute settlement for maritime boundary issues, that really doesn't pass the straight face test. So it'll be interesting to see how the arbitral tribunal rules on the case. If they find that there's no jurisdiction, in my mind, I think the law of the sea convention goes out the window because it'll demonstrate that there is no, there's no teeth in the convention to have any type of compulsory dispute settlement on its provision. So again, a watershed event. We'll see how it plays out in the next couple of years. Let me wrap up by talking a little bit about the East China Sea dispute because China doesn't only have problems in the South China Sea. It also has a significant territorial dispute with Japan and the East China Sea. Something that really wasn't an issue until about 1969 when the UN issued a report that said there was a lot of oil and gas in the vicinity of the Senkakus. At that point, China got very interested in the Senkakus. They'd always have claimed the Senkakus as part of their territory, but it wasn't until this report came out that they really became more vocal and more confrontational over the issue. Now in 1971, the Ryukus Islands after World War II were placed under US administration under the 1951 peace treaty. So we were administering all of these islands that were Japanese territory, but were being administered by the United States. In 1971, we entered into an agreement with Japan, the Okinawa Transfer Agreement, where we transferred all of our rights back to Japan. So administrative control of the Ryukus Islands now falls back to Japan. Now that's important because our mutual defense treaty with Japan says that attack on any territory administered by Japan is covered by the defense obligations under our mutual defense treaty. So these islands are administered by Japan. So if an attack occurs in the Ryukus Islands, then theoretically Japan could invoke Article 5 of the mutual defense treaty, and we would then have to make a decision as to whether or not we're going to come to their assistance or not. It's not an automatic thing. We still have to, our Congress would still have to authorize it, or the President would still have to authorize it, but it certainly could be invoked. And things were simmering for a while after this report came out in 2010, things came to a head when the Coast Guard, two Japanese Coast Guard vessels were going to arrest a Chinese fishing vessel that was illegally fishing within the exclusive economic zone of the Senkakus, and the fishing boat intentionally rammed. Both of the Japanese Coast Guard vessels, the captain was arrested, he was subsequently released under significant pressure, diplomatic pressure by China. A lot of riots going on in China, destroying Japanese businesses in several large cities in China. They stopped the shipment of rare earth metals to Japan, and that eventually had a spillover effect to the EU and to the United States. Finally, the guy was released, and he was sent home, but he was tried in absentia in July of 2011. A couple years later, some Chinese activists from Hong Kong landed on the Senkakus, first successful Chinese landing on the Senkakus since 2004, so almost a decade since they'd been trying this repeatedly, but it always had been stopped by the Japanese. Here we have a successful landing that was followed by a couple of days later by some Japanese conservative groups. By the way, these guys were arrested by the Japanese Coast Guard and deported back to China within a few days. Then in September of 2012, the Japanese central government purchased three of the five of the Senkaku Islands. The Senkaku Islands were owned by a Japanese family, and they had been leased to the government of Japan for many years, originally leased to the United States. We used to use the Senkakus for bombing practice after World War II. So, anyway, the central government buys three of the five islands because the mayor of Tokyo, who's very conservative, was going to purchase them and going to start to develop them, and the central government felt that that was a bad thing because that would cause the Chinese to be upset because now the Japanese are developing the Senkaku Islands. So, the central government bought them with the idea being we can ward off any efforts by the mayor of Tokyo to purchase these things by intervening. Well, the Chinese didn't buy that. They initially sent some of their maritime law enforcement vessels within the 12-mile territorial sea. Again, something that hadn't occurred very often in the past that was followed shortly there by a Taiwanese fishing fleet and 12 Taiwanese Coast Guard vessels coming up and trying to fish in the area, which led to the water cannon war between Taiwan and Japan. Then China, on the 13th of September, drew straight baselines around the three islands that the Japanese had purchased, claiming this to be all basically archipelagic waters of China. Again, China is a continental state. They can't draw archipelagic baselines, but they do here, and they do in the parasails. They draw archipelagic baselines around the parasails. It's clearly illegal under international law. And then on the 19th of January, we had a PLAN frigate that actually locked its fire control radar on a Japanese destroyer that was in a vicinity. So, what's our position on all of this stuff? We already talked about the excessive claims. We have diplomatically protested and operationally challenged all of China's excessive maritime claims. We haven't done it for a while. I mean, I saw something with the exception of the EEZ. We're routinely challenging their position on the EEZ because we routinely have surveillance ships and SRO flights that are conducting operations in their exclusive economic zone or above their exclusive economic zone. So, apart from that, though, we really haven't challenged their, like their straight baselines, for example. We haven't had a ship challenge the Chinese straight baselines since the mid-1990s. That doesn't mean that we acquiesce in their claims, but just that the political will is not there to do it. The South China Sea Islands, we take no position on the U-shaped claim. I think that's a mistake on our point, our part. And we do not take position on the underlying territorial disputes. Again, that's valid. I think we probably shouldn't take a position on the territorial disputes, but we can certainly challenge the validity of the U-shaped claim without challenging who owns the various features in the South China Sea. As I mentioned, we have indicated publicly that we do have a national interest in freedom of navigation, and access to the South China Sea is a very important strategic sea lines of communication for the United States and our allies, and we're not gonna let the Chinese close it off, claiming it to be their waters. We support multilateral discussions. The Chinese do not like multilateral discussions. They wanna resolve this on a bilateral basis with the various countries in the region, because then they can bully those, the smaller nations into an inequitable solution. So they're opposed to ASEAN getting involved in this and having any type of multilateral debate on the issue. And then finally, we insist that the maritime claim should be settled in accordance with international law. That includes a law of the sea convention, even though we're not a party to it, and that we're opposed any type of threat or coercion on the part of China with regards to its neighbors. Now, as I mentioned, we all have a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines as well. In the past, we've been fairly clear to the Filipinos that we will not come to their assistance if a feature in the KIG is attacked by China. That's different though from saying that we won't come to your assistance if Philippine forces aren't attacked, because the mutual defense treaty applies to attack on Philippine forces in the Pacific. So let's say you got those 20 Filipino Marines that are on that beached ship that Second Thomas Shull and the Chinese attack them, does the mutual defense treaty apply? And I would say as a matter of law, it probably does, because they're attacking Philippine forces in the Pacific. Again, that doesn't mean that we automatically come to their assistance. We still have to go through our constitutional process as to whether or not we will use force in collective self-defense, but it does provide the Filipinos with an opportunity to raise the mutual defense treaty as a possible avenue of redress. With the Senkakus, again, we take no position on the underlying territorial disputes. Again, I don't understand that position because if the islands were administered by the United States after World War II, they obviously were not Chinese territory. They were obviously Japanese territory. So for us to not take a position on the territorial dispute to me is somewhat disingenuous. We should take a position and say that this is clearly Japanese territory because it was passed back to them under the Reversion Treaty. The only thing that we have done is we have protested the straight baselines that they drew around the three islands. And we already talked about the Mutual Defense Treaty. Again, Article V says that the Mutual Defense Treaty does apply to features that are administered by China. Different from the Kuros, right? Those aren't administered by Japan. The Russians are, the Soviets took them over after World War II. They still occupy the Kuros. The Kuros islands are not under Japanese administration. Therefore, we've actually taken a position on the Kuros. We've said that that's Japanese territory and the Russians have illegally occupied it. But we say that it's not subject to the Mutual Defense Treaty. I'm done. Got any questions?